


Shotgun

by nyctanthes



Series: 1985 was a good year [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Being 17 is hard, But it isn't angst either, F/M, Gen, Long-Distance Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Season 3 coda, Sibling Love, Weed is smoked, this isn't fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 02:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19758610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyctanthes/pseuds/nyctanthes
Summary: Fuck the real world.





	Shotgun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fan_flashworks challenge #268: Take the Wheel.

"I've given this a lot of thought. I think it's for the best. Hear me out, ok?"

He tries, for weeks he tries, as hard as he can. Tries every wheedling suggesting insinuating fulminating trick in the book. In the beginning, he tries and knows he will succeed. In the middle, he tries and knows he will have to compromise. At the end, he tries and knows he will fail. He persists anyway. He doesn’t have a choice. He’s had this for only a few months. He won't let it go without a fight.

“A new place. A fresh start. No Upside Down. No monsters or powers or mad scientists or government cover-ups. No Russians! No possible chance any of us could be a target. I’m less needed.” 

Mom smiles.

“I should stay in Hawkins. Finish up school and pick up more hours at work. The continuity would be good for college applications.” 

“We won't be able to sell our place. Who would buy it? It’s the double-wide equivalent of the Amityville mansion. Seriously, who is going to want to live in Hawkins after all the terrible shit - the bad stuff - that went down? If I stay, I can take care of the house.”

In the beginning she smiles, through the pain, with sympathy and understanding. She scrunches up her face in that way she has, that makes her look like Thumper. She wrinkles her nose and nods vigorously. _Yes, yes, good point, you’re making a lot of sense._ She reaches towards him, to comb the hair out of his eyes, even though it’s not in his eyes, and he leans away from her. 

“Mom, no. It’s fine. Promise me you’ll think about what I said?” 

Then, she finds a real estate broker. In every room she moves the furniture into the middle of the room. She covers it with tarps and splurges on Sherwin-Williams Whitetail. When he offers to help, she brushes him off. “I want this done right.” When the paint dries, she scrubs the counters, cabinets and windows; replaces the toilet, the sink and shower fixtures. She puts mirrors in strategic spots, "to make the rooms bigger, brighter." Rents a steam cleaner and vacuums the house from end to end, until it smells like baking soda and vinegar, soapy water and lemony fresh air. Until it doesn’t smell like their house. 

“Where is the money coming for all this,” he asks. She looks at him, a manic gleam in her eyes. “Jonathan, remember what the wise man said. ‘Sometimes you have to spend money to make money.’” 

He really hopes the wise man she’s referring to isn’t Murray fucking Bauman. 

The house doesn't sparkle, but it’s certainly shinier than previously. “Be sure to keep your rooms clean. Everything in its place,” Mom constantly reminds him, reminds Will, reminds El. When they ignore her, an unspoken pact - conspiratorial glances exchanged around the dinner table as she pokes inside the fridge, wondering where the pickles are hiding - she cleans their rooms herself. 

“I’ll get in the way. You’ll have your hands full with Will and El. You don’t need a third kid around, taking up time and space and resources. Four bedroom houses are expensive and scarce, and you've got to factor in how much I eat. How much I sleep. How messy I am. Not to mention brooding and sullen and, when you think about it, a total buzzkill. Admit it, aren't you all a little happier when I’m not around?”

“How am I going to make friends? I’m going to be starting school - my _senior year_ \- weeks after it gets under way.”

She smiles; but this time, in the middle, it's with pinched lips and shining eyes, skin stretched tight across her cheekbones. It’s a smile tinged with more than a little sorrow and pity.

Then, she picks the state and the town she wants them to move to and informs them of her decision. She doesn’t ask for his advice or his opinion. She pitches him, pitches Will and El on it. Not like someone working on commission, who'd do anything for a skeptical "I'll get back to you." Rather, like someone sitting in the boss’s chair, who's magnanimously giving them an opportunity to maintain their dignity, to act like this is their idea. He - all three of them - stare at her, arms crossed. She doesn’t blink. 

So he begs and pleads. Fuck the real world. He’s tired of living in it. He and Nancy, together, are going to make their own, better world. 

“You know how I feel about Nancy, and she feels the same about me. I don't ask you for anything. Not for a better car or better clothes. Not for a camera or cash that I didn’t earn myself. I don't complain. Don't question why I have to work late and get up early and cook meals and chauffeur Will and do the yard work and barely have time to myself. For years, since before Dad left. But now I’m asking. I need this. You don't understand how much I need this.”

So he rants and raves. Egged on by the joint he and Nancy smoked by the quarry. By the sex they had in the back seat of his car and Nancy moaned, clung to him, bit his shoulder and scratched hot, red lines into his back. She covered him with her lips and her smell and her tears while he promised, he swore that he’d find a way for them to stay together. 

“But you won’t pretend to consider it, not for a minute. You want me around because I’m useful, because I know my place and don’t rock the boat. As long as I help support the family you have nothing to say to me. We don’t see each other for days; we barely talk any more. But as soon I want something for myself, you suddenly care what I am doing. How about I promise to visit, to send you money. Will that satisfy you?”

As the words leave his mouth, he cringes. He wants to start again, sound righteous and unassailable, like he does in his head; not ridiculous, like the kind of person he prides himself on not being. Someone immature and petulant, self-centered and entitled.

At the end, she doesn’t smile. Her expression is awful: hurt and angry. _Disappointed_. All round, sunken eyes and pale, drawn face. She squares shoulders swimming in a faded shirt of Bob’s and thrusts her chin out. His mouth turns cottony, his stomach twists. He forces himself not to hunch, not to stick his hands in his pockets and look away.

“You may choose to abandon your family when you’re eighteen,” she says, implacably. “But today you are seventeen years old. You’ll go where I tell you to. You are _my son_.” A term of endearment, or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it a commandment, that she hasn’t directed at him in some time. 

She’s always been focused and determined. He’s always acknowledged it. This is the first time, though, that her focus and determination have stood in the way of his heart’s desire.

Mom tugs on it. The thread, thin as spider’s silk and three times as strong, that connects him to her and Will. His Byers-ness, and all that entails: being there for each other; not giving a shit what anyone thinks; sticking to their guns; stepping up; cleaning up the broken pieces - there is forever too much to clean up, will they ever stop needing to clean up. And don't forget moving forward, moving on. None of it needs to be said out loud. All these notions are tucked inside four words: you are my son. Text and subtext that form a thread that connects him, he’s beginning to understand, to Eleven as well. (He’s sliced her shin open along the grain; pressed his fingers inside and wiggled them around; almost but not quite, he’s useless that way, grabbed an inter-dimensional demon chunk by the throat. Why the hell not try to think of her as, if not a sister, then at least family?) Mom tugs on the thread with a watery smile and an arm that reaches for him. 

But he doesn’t want to be a Byers any longer. No, that's not accurate. He does want to be one, he'll always be one. But why not from here? Why does it have to be from over there? 

“Nancy and I almost died, and it wasn’t you who saved me," he shouts - croaks - scratchy and strangled, high-pitched, someone's got their fingers round his throat. "We saved each other. Where were you when we were attacked by the Flayed, when Will and El were stalked, hunted by them in the hospital, chased all over town? With _Hopper_.” 

Shit. 

He well and truly has a knack for saying the wrong, absolutely wrong thing. The horrible, most horrible thing. What you think about your family but don't allow yourself to whisper let alone scream. _They’re depressed. They’re angry. They’re grieving, have been grieving for weeks, for months, for years. They’re constantly on the verge of falling apart. They’re not the family they used to be, that they pretend they still are. They’re feeding another mouth they couldn't afford to unless Hopper - who he misses, of course he does, why did he have to say it like he doesn't - left his insurance payouts and his pension to Mom, so they’ll get by. They’re going to get their act together one of these days, please, god, please. He wants to be able to walk away without feeling bad about it. He wants to be able to walk away._

Did she blame him for not being there when Will was in trouble? When the Mind Flayer took his brother over completely, almost killed him, but he was too busy losing his virginity in Murray’s fortress to notice? No, of course she didn’t. Even when he asked her to.

He thinks she’s going to slap him, which she’s not once threatened to do. He can't say she doesn't have cause.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it,” he immediately apologizes. He leans in to hug her and for a second, the barest second, she hesitates. She draws inward, protecting herself, protecting herself from him. He doesn't want that to happen again. 

So he packs. He drives. He unpacks. He makes promises he’s going to keep. Because what’s a thousand miles between you and the one you love when, together, you’ve exposed government conspiracies and faced down monsters. When, together, you’ve killed walking talking zombies. (Zombies who were once people; obnoxious, lousy, nasty people, but people. He murdered what was once a human being with a blade buried deep in the throat. As he did it, felt only rage and relief and triumph. As long as he lives, he won't forget that.) 

When a song comes on the radio that reminds El of Mike and she sighs and turns pensive; or Mom asks Will if any of the girls in his class are pretty and he bristles and turns combative, Mom looks at them fondly, knowingly. She strokes their hair, wraps arms around them. “You’re so young, give it time,” she orders. “Very soon you’ll be happy. You're going to like living here. You’ll see.” They roll their eyes and shiver away. “Joyce.” “Mom.” They want to believe it, though. They want to believe her. 

Mom doesn’t include him in her pep talks. She doesn’t smile at him, with gentle significance, across the room.

It’s near midnight, but they stay on the line, not talking, simply listening to the other breath. Neither of them have nightmares, not especially. He’s an expert at compartmentalizing, and Nancy sleeps the sleep of the vindicated. It’s more that, when everyone’s down for the night and all he hears is the quiet, he becomes jittery and unsettled, watchful. He keeps himself awake, fighting sleep for the first time in his life, yet still rises too early, ready, needing to move. 

He’s started running. 

They write letters, pages and pages, rambling and packed with meaningless details: a calendar of their days; nicknames he’d deny using if anyone heard them, but are just right when they say them to each other; elaborate promises of what they mean to each other; thick descriptions of what they’ll do when they’re finally together; lists of what they’re reading and eating and listening to, what they’re studying and dreaming; verbatim transcriptions, or made-up ones when he forgets, of who said what to whom. He’s, obviously, not much of a talker, but he’s found that when he picks up a pen and puts it to paper the words flow and flow. They need somewhere to go. 

He shoots photograph after photograph. Of school. Of their new place. Of Will and El and Mom. Of his room - which he creates in its old image until the expression on Mom’s face, when she stops by to check it out, gives him pause. He reminds himself that he’s not sentimental, and he changes it up. His bed under the window and his dresser against the far wall. His Evil Dead poster on the inside of his closet door. Black Flag and The Cramps join REM on the wall and curl their lips, are unimpressed. One day he’s exploring the neighborhood, shuffling through drifts of orangey-red and browning yellow leaves, and comes across a couch, a corduroy two seater just off the sidewalk. _Free to whoever wants it_. After giving it a sniff test, an experimental bounce, he cajoles Will into helping him tie it to the roof of his car and drives it home. He gives his chair to El and she grins, wide and sincere; as if his shitty chair is the best, most thoughtful gift he could have given her. Because each nice thing that happens to her, no matter how insubstantial, is precious and worth taking seriously. He can’t help but grin back. 

Thanksgiving falls through, for one reason or the other - distance and bad weather and the Wheelers decreeing it far too soon for reunions. He counts the days until Christmas. 

At first, it’s a lot like it used to be at Hawkins, before Nancy. Ghosting the hallways. Keeping his head down; he’s letting his hair grow out, to facilitate it. When the weather cooperates, eating lunch on the hood of his car. When he's not working, the darkroom. There’s one here, if there wasn’t he’s pretty sure he would have lost his mind. After a few weeks of his steady, unobtrusive presence a regular asks him if he smokes. They head outside - there's an away game today - and huddle on the bleachers in the wintry, iron twilight. The guy, Chris, name drops this band, Felt, that he hasn't heard of. He’s high and adjacent to happy. He doesn’t bother faking it. 

“You think this place is bad, you should see where I'm from. What a dump. Metallica, Metallica, Metallica, with Ratt thrown in for variety,” he laughs. His eyes tic with guilt that he betrayed Hawkins so readily, the first time someone invites him over to listen to a record. Metallica isn’t bad, per se. They’re good, great at what they do, in fact. They're just not his style. 

He shoots on his drives to and from school, on his drives to and from work. Will and El protest, make jokes at his expense, but he ignores them. He stops at half mile increments and searches for a noteworthy landmark, a distinctive object or viewpoint that he can capture, that he can develop and mail to Nancy. It’s different here: the landscape, the buildings, the people, the light. He’s not used to it, but he can tolerate it, for a few months. 

And he counts: thirteen more days.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, I made myself a little sad, writing that.


End file.
